#in its own way...

[notwiselybuttoowell]

For many on the right, beef is a hot-button issue.

The Canadian pop psychologist Jordan Peterson – who’s been called “custodian of the patriarchy” by the New Yorker – is an adherent of carnivore diets. Joe Rogan, more recently in the news for agreeing with the notorious misogynist Andrew Tate, has himself promoted “the Lion Diet”, a carnivore approach that eschews even dairy in favor of water, salt and meat from ruminant animals. This way of eating has been gaining traction on social media, where shirtless men proudly display their meals of steak, grassfed-cow butter and duck eggs.

That these men believe in prescribed gender roles and all-American tradition is no coincidence. “Recent scientific studies confirm that those of us who hold authoritarian beliefs … who seek wealth and power and support human dominance over nature, eat more meat than those who stand against inequality,” writes Marta Zaraska in her book Meathooked: The History and Science of Our 2.5-Million-Year Obsession with Meat.

For these men, performative meat eating is a demonstration of virility and restraint; of power and savagery.

These ideas are tied up in the history of beef, something most people in the US grow up believing is an inevitable and undeniable part of our diets, a birthright. This did not happen by accident, and cultural imperialism has played a part in the beef industry since its beginnings.

The cowboy, the enduring symbol of virility, affluence and rugged Americana, is himself a cattle farmer. Cowboys were responsible for herding cattle in the west from the early 1800s, when English-speaking ranchers adopted the customs of Mexico’s vaqueros, until mechanization took over by the early 20th century. Yet their place in mythology has only grown over time. The figure in US culture represents not just masculinity, control of livestock and the dominance of the west, but the very genocide upon which the nation was built – which can’t be looked at as separate from the role of meat and military strength in American ideology.

Settler colonialism, the term that describes the displacement of Indigenous peoples in favor of European settlers, was essential to the creation of the beef industry – as it was for many other beloved American institutions. Nineteenth-century government policy saw the Great Plains ecosystem turned from a grass-bison-nomad system to a grass-cattle-rancher one, with the Indian wars a necessary step in the establishment of the rancher mythos.

Bison herds were decimated by settlers who saw them as “monstrous”, while cattle represented civilization, according to Joshua Specht’s book Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-to-Table History of How Beef Changed America. “Cattle ranchers and bison hunters, supported by the US military, fundamentally reshaped the Great Plains,” writes Specht, “expelling American Indians from western lands and appropriating that land for use by white settlers and ranchers.”

Destroying bison herds was part of an attempt to starve Indigenous peoples into submission, as these were a significant part of their livelihoods, and the US army took on an active role in aiding and abetting this process. Without this process of extermination and colonization, beef’s emergence as a staple of the American diet might not have occurred so readily.

The idea that meat is as essential as air has been part of the American project since its inception. But the popularity of beef has been manufactured and created by cultural and market forces.

Beef’s modern market dominance was also manufactured. The meat industry’s marketing campaigns – including 80s and 90s advertising slogans such as “Beef. It’s What’s for Dinner”, spoken by strong male voices – have long been funded by commodity checkoff programs that are paid into by farmers, often to the benefit of massive manufacturers and the detriment of small ones. The federal government’s annual subsidies of meat and animal products amount to $38bn. Eating animal products for breakfast, lunch and dinner is overconsumption that would have been unthinkable to previous generations, and it has been driven by marketing and industrial farming.

The lure of beef is so strong that even as vegetarianism becomes slightly more popular, plant-based replacements do everything they can to look as much like bloody flesh as possible. Often, this seems to give them a free pass to flourish in meat-dominated spaces: the Impossible Burger, for example, launched with chef partnerships, working with people such as David Chang, a previously vocal anti-vegetarian. It is now on menus at Burger Kings, White Castles and Little Caesars.

“Our relationship to meat is powerful,” Zaraska writes in her book, which explores how meat has long been a status symbol – in gender, class and even nationalism. If you remove this symbol, you have to make up the difference somehow. When you’re no longer exerting power over animals, it helps to at least look like you could, and to eat food that resembles flesh.

In order to meet environmental targets, the US needs to eat drastically less beef than we are currently consuming. We also need to reverse global trends: many other countries are developing a taste for cheap cow and pork. Global meat consumption is expected to increase by 1.4% this year, which is more than the planet can handle. But as a society we are unable to tackle our meat consumption without acknowledging that beef is more than a foodstuff – when it means cowboys, masculinity and strength, when it is a literal cash cow for so many, when so many in the US are committed to its significance – and when even the newfangled substitutes are hooked on the old models of how meat should be sold and what it looks like.

[mischievous-thunder]

Why are you two improvising?! Why are you making it seem so real?! Wait, is it real??

[bonehearts]

bad ending

[hinamie]

I don't want to regret the way I lived

[chipper-smol]

[marzipanandminutiae]

what's with the weird glorification of smoking that's come back lately

like

I've seen so many posts that paint opposing smoking as some impossibly Loser-ish or puritanical stance and I really don't get it

it makes you, your house, and your clothing stink, destroys your teeth, and gives you lung cancer. opposing it is. Correct. obviously addiction is very complicated and quitting can be hard, but just saying "smoking is gross and harmful as a practice (including vaping)" is True and Right actually

some of you have never grown up hearing about how some beloved family member died a slow, agonized, wasting death of smoking-induced cancer, or watching it firsthand for yourself, and it shows

[cosmicrhetoric]

ok i finally get why everyone fucking loves law it's cause every time the straw hats do literally anything they cut back to him making this EXACT face

[starry-bi-sky]

I am loudly pushing the batdad agenda i am loudly pushing the— DPxDC Prompt

“Woah. You look like shit."

Granted, that’s probably not the first thing Danny should be saying to the guy that just bit the curb, but in his defense; he’s not running on 100% right now either.

The man -- tall, towering, and broader than Danny is tall -- whips around on his heel, black frayed cape flaring out impressively. Danny would've whistled in appreciation, but he takes the time instead to wipe the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing the blood running from his nose across his cheek.

"Sorry." He blinks widely, not even flinching as the man with the horns zeroes in on him. "That was rude of me. I have a really bad brain-to-mouth filter; Sam says its what always gets me into trouble."

And she's not wrong either, per say. His smart mouth is what landed him in this situation -- with blood blossom extract running through his veins and cannibalizing the ectoplasm in his bloodstream. Thanks Vlad.

The man grunts at him; a short, curt "hm" that shouldn't make Danny smile, but he does because he's somewhat delirious and probably concussed. The man keeps some kind of distance, sinking towards the shadows of Gotham's alleyway like he dares to melt right into it.

If it's supposed to scare Danny, it doesn't work. Danny's never been afraid of the dark; he's always been able to hide himself in it. He blinks slowly at the mass of shadows.

"You look hurt." The shadows says, blurring together around the edges. Danny squints, and licks his lips to get the blood dripping down his chin off. Ugh, he hates the taste of blood.

"I am." He says, "My godfather poisoned me. M'dying." The agony of the blood blossom eating him from the inside out looped back around to numbing a while ago, so all he feels is half-awake and dazed.

"Hey," Danny stumbles forward towards the man, a bloodied hand reaching out to him. "You-- you're a hero, right? You're not attacking me; which is more than I can say for most costumed people I've met." Maybe it's a poor bar to judge someone at, but he's already established that Danny's not in his right mind.

The man makes no change in expression, but Danny realizes blearily that it's hard to tell with the shadows on his face. He stays still long enough for Danny to latch onto the cape -- stretchy, but almost soft under his fingers.

He looks up blearily into the whites of the man's eyes. "Can you help me? I don't-- I don't wanna die." Again. He doesn't wanna die again. He blinks slow and lizard-like. "I mean- I'll probably get to see mom and dad again, but I told them I'd at least try and make it to adulthood."

There's a clatter down the street, and Danny's ghost sense chills up his spine and leaves a bitter, ashy taste in his mouth. He immediately knows who it belongs to even before the deceptively gentle; "Daniel?" echoes down the way.

"Daniel? Quit your games, badger, Gotham is dangerous for children."

Danny's mouth pulls back, and blood spills against his tongue. "Please." He rasps, and grabs onto the shadow's cape with both hands. "Please. He's going to kill me. Please--"

"Daniel? Is that you?"

His lips part, dragging in air to plead with the darkness again. He doesn't need to, the whites of his eyes narrow, and the cape whirls around him before Danny can blink. Soon swaddled in shadows, the Night lifts him up, and steals him away.

[bookshelfpassageway]

yknow i dont go here but sometimes i gotta go: seriously respect clowns. they have the worst pop culture representation in the world and also the best most thorough honor code. they're just here to be silly little guys who bring joy and are very conscientious about doing so responsibly. let them to their merriment in peace you dont hafta take potshots. i dont go here but like maybe i should, you all seem super chill

[ryuuna]

angered Night

[insufferablemod]

super quick redraw of a piece from 2014 for 413!!!

[newttxt]

lulaw bodyswap (or, the exquisite humiliation of trafalgar law) for @strawhattery's birthday!

bonus: the original toilet humor gag that ended up on the chopping block

[coddda]

I wish we could have met in some other way.

Lawlight Week Day 2: Soulmates

If you saw me repost and re-edit this several times uh No you didn't </3

Still frames/Individual gifs:

If you know what every frame is from you get a free cookie. by the way

[eveningrainstorm]

take responsibility.

[dcxdpdabbles]

Danny: Don't make it obvious, but that girl I told you about is about to walk by our store window-

Dan/Dani/Jazz: *Pressing themselves against the glass* The one in the purple or the one with the bob?

Danny: Stop it! They can see you! Aghhh *dives under counter* She saw me!

Dan: It's the one with the bob.

Dani: she's hot!

Jazz: You should go out there with free samples, Danny. Start a conversation.

Danny: For all that is holy, GET AWAY FROM THE WINDOW.

Outside the shop

Steph: Aw, was that the guy you were telling me about? The one that blushed that hard and dove under the counter?

Cass: Yes, isn't he cute? He co-owns the chocolate store with his siblings.

Steph: Yummy. You should go in there! Ask for some free samples, and start a conversation. Get your flirt on.

Cass: I'm waiting for the right moment. He looks like he's going to have a heart attack every time he sees me, but I can tell he likes me.

Steph: Want to loop back and pretend to stare at the bunny chocolate display?

Cass: *Taking off her cardigan* Well, he does need to build up an immunity to my looks.

[cryptidmickle]

tfw when ur friend wants to arrest ur emotional support war criminal